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Your blog is perhaps one of the best pieces of science writings I have recently come across! Brilliant work ! I have been meaning to start something similar..now am inspired :)
By the way- . . .Read More

I'm starting as the Associate Director of the Genomic Analysis Facility at Duke University in two weeks! Hopefully once things settle down I'll actually be able to write again and start recruitin. . .Read More

With just sixteen shopping days until Christmas, it's easy to get roped into buying things we might not actually have on our gift list.

Most times, we're conscious of our impulse purchases—there's a great sale on this! I'll use that later!

But sometimes reasons for our frivolous purchases are not so obvious to us. Don't feel too bad—store chains actually hire researchers to study our shopping patterns and take advantage of our weaknesses.

Our brains are endlessly fascinatingly organs—but sometimes they betray us. The following is the first post in a five-part series on how stores trick our senses into shelling out more money than we may intend.

Taste

Did you ever take the Pepsi Challenge?

For those unfamiliar (or living under a rock), the Pepsi Challenge was a campaign started by Pepsi back in the 1970s where Coca-Cola was pitted against Pepsi in a blind taste test by consumers.

When it was revealed that most Americans chose Pepsi over Coca-Cola, sales skyrocketed.

How they tricks us: We consumers like brands, and we're loyal to them.

It make sense, right? If you love your old Chevy but are in the market for a new car, you'll probably stick to the same make. It's familiar, and it didn't let you down.

In 2004, Dr. Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine tested the Pepsi Challenge on people while their brains were imagined in an fMRI machine.

Among the volunteers, more than half of them, much like the national polls, claimed to prefer Pepsi.

Their enjoyment was confirmed via fMRI. Compared to Coca-Cola, activity was greater in the ventral putamen—a region associated with reward—when volunteers sipped on Pepsi.

The study then took a surprising twist when Dr. Montague conducted his second experiment. This time, the volunteers were told whether they'd be sampling Coke or Pepsi before they took a sip.

Strangely, 75% of participants suddenly claimed to prefer Coke.

Furthermore, fMRI scans showed activity in the medial prefrontal cortex—associated with higher thinking and decision-making—in addition to the ventral putamen. Now, it seemed, their brains were locked in a battle of rational thinking versus pleasurable feeling.